Alice Notley on Allen Ginsberg – 4

2 weeks ago September 13, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg observing a plaster model of the young Alice Notley, (part of an installation), modelled for the artist, George Segal]

Alice Notley talk on Allen Ginsberg and his exemplary internationalism continues and concludes today

Poem 6 is a song, “Industrial Waves,” that is to be sung (and I don’t know the tune) – “And I know Allen will follow me tound the world with his terrible singing voice” Ted (Berrigan) wrote, but it wasn’t that terrible at all.  “Freedom for Indonesia to murder half a million/ Freedom for South Africa to stabilize the Bullion/ Freedom … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 373

July 6, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg – photo: Ira Cohen –  1978, from Ira Cohen & Carolina Gosselin’s “Bandaged Poets” Series]

Jeff Tamarkin reviews the Craft Recordings Howl box-set for Relix – here (For his review of The Complete Songs of Innocence and Experience – see here)

Eddie Woods, Amsterdam legend, remembers Allen in an extended interview on Dutch television (Kieurnet Television) – vid from back in 1997 – (nice to hear shout-outs to Simon Vinkenoog, Ira Cohen – and Benn Posset!)

This coming Sunday (July 8) in Los Angeles at Beyond Baroque – “Kerouac on Record”, “part conversation, part reading, … Read More

Compositional Practice (Sustained Attention – 2)

May 16, 2018Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg on compositional practice continues from here

Student: Ted (Berrigan) says you write poems when you’re on a retreat.

AG:  Sometimes. If I’m somewhere where I don’t have to do anything, then I tend to write. Like, I wrote a lot up in.. when I went up that week for the seminary I wrote a whole… about fourteen little poems. But that was because they had a poetry reading there, and so I wrote something to read. And I didn’t like the way.. their attitude there, so  I was trying to reflect on, straightforward, you know, fresh, perception, I’ll … Read More

A List of List Poems

December 21, 2017Simon Pettet
AG:  But by this anaphoric rapture, or anaphoric repetition, it {Crashaw’s poem “The Flaming  Heart”] actually builds up to rapture. So this is what Anne Waldman calls “a list poem”, actually, an early list poem. I taught a little poetry workshop this weekend and checked out list poems and the samples I used were (the) thirteenth and twenty-eighth chapters of Ecclesiastes (because there is “..or the golden bowl be broken”), and then I read Christopher Smart, I used “Like to the flaming of a star.”,  the little.. – I used that as a list
… Read More

“The Time of Composition”

November 22, 2017Simon Pettet
 
[Rainer Maria Gerhardt (1927-1954)]
[Ted Berrigan (1934-1983)]
 
[Charles Olson (1910-1970)]
Student: Can I ask you a little bit of an off-the-wall question?
AG: Yes.. Why don’t we leave this time open now for just general…
Student: In our (Ted) Berrigan class  tonight, he said this comment that,  “The time of the composition is the time of the composition”…. (I’ve been trying to understand that)  and I’ve been trying all night.  And he says “Well, you should know that with every poem that you read, (before you start out).
AG: The time of  the composition is the time of the … Read More

Catching Up – Ben Jonson, John Donne)

June 20, 2017Simon Pettet

[Ben Jonson (1572-1637) & John Donne ( 1572-1631)

1980 -Allen was absent and unable to teach one week, so poet Dick Gallup took over his Naropa “Basic Poetics’ class. Allen, on his return, was eager to find out what happened.

AG: What happened with Dick (Gallup)? How was the class?

Student: It was funny

AG: What did you take up?

Student: Everything.. (John Donne),  (Ben) Jonson….

AG: Did he do the Ben Jonson poem on Shakespeare?

Student: No, no, he gave us some background about their lives.

AG: Good, because I don’t know anything about that.

Student He gave … Read More

Ben Jonson – (“Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes”)

March 28, 2017Simon Pettet

AG:   To (Ben)  Jonson. What I wanted to get onto was page two-sixty, “The Triumph of Charis“.. oh no, before that, we did that, those two little epitaphs, on page two fifty-six, two fifty-seven – and, on the way out, (Ted) Berrigan reminded me of a poem he likes particularly, “On Gut”  – “Gut eats all day and lechers all the night..” – page two fifty-six – patting his belly and preaching on gut – “Gut eats all day and lechers all the night;/So all his meat he tasteth over twice;/Andm striving so to double his … Read More

Jim Carroll Workshop – 2

August 14, 2016admin

continuing from yesterday – Jim Carroll’s workshop 

JC: Well, I’m going to play a song that was a great..  one of my favorites… ..Actually, I’m going to play this early Velvet Underground song and then I’m going to play a Phil Ochs song. For some reason, Phil Ochs and The Velvet Underground have this weird connection for me. I mean. they got me into poetry as much as Bob.. well more than Bob Dylan, and as much as Frank O’Hara
[Student/technical assistant plays The Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” – JC: “Yeah go ahead..just turn it up here” – Student: The … Read More

Anselm Hollo on Some Modern Poets Fragmentation

September 20, 2015admin

 Anselm Hollo on Modern Fragmentation   June 25 1986 Continuing his remarks on fragmentation, poet-translator, Anselm Hollo looks at the concept in the work of seven of his contemporaries – Armand Schwerner, Ronald Johnson, Tom Phillips, Ted Berrigan, Larry Eigner, Tom Raworth, and Philip Whalen 

AH: I sort of went through my tattered memory to think about instances where contemporaries have used the idea of the fragment, or..something, done something related to that, and one very obvious example that came to mind is the American poet, Armand Schwerner, whose.. I would say his main … Read More

Poetry In Motion

May 3, 2014admin

Ron Mann’s groundbreaking 1982 film, Poetry In Motion, (we have featured, in the past, snippets, including Allen’s enthusiastic “Capitol Air” performance) is now available, in its entirety, on the incomparable UbuWeb.  From their informative notes:  “It was re-released in 1994 in an innovative format on CD-Rom..and, in 2002, as a DVD. Poetry In Motion 25 was also made available (“a one-hour television special featuring outtakes from Poetry In Motion with many of the artists featured in the original film”, (different poems, different settings), “plus a bunch of new faces (including Peter Orlovsky, Alice Notley, Jerome … Read More